Developers, system providers and administrators of large heterogeneous network configurations based on the IP standard, such as the internet, appear to be facing mounting challenges due to the rapid growth of the Internet and the speedy advancement in transmission and hardware technology. Therefore, testing a new network or network expansions prior to actual installation, for their load state, may be considered an important task. By a load test one may mean that the targeted loading of the network, such as of the routers and servers connected to such a network, in order to determine their performance with respect to the required data throughput and the response time to a user request. There is, therefore, a need for a test system, which is able to test network components based on the IP standard, under real load conditions, to be able to ensure that all network components are functioning properly in an error-free manner, within their predefined performance limits.
The reference U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,000 purportedly concerns a system for remotely testing a computer system, where instructions can be sent from a host computer 100 to so-called target machines. The target machines, in turn, perform actions that a user would otherwise undertake.
The reference European Patent No. 0 883 271 purportedly concerns a method as well as a system for managing data-service systems. The test method is suited for generating test traffic or test signals to simulate a data transmission when subscribers access services. The test system includes test devices which are set up as decentralized devices, which, via a plurality of so-called measuring routes, may allow a determination of the behavior of mutually influencing modules or the behavior of one module in the entire system.